Zapata Mexican Taco Shop — Restaurant in Colorado Springs

Some of you might remember the RJG waxing on about how great Taco Fiesta is in Baltimore. Yea, Baltimore. We could never find a place in DFW that matched its greatness, which is insane. I'm sure there were some, we just didn't find it. And please don't throw out hipster joints like R Taco and Torchy's. Yea those places are cool and we dig them yadda yadda, but we're talking something different here. After trying a few places here in the Springs, we came across Zapata. YES! This is what we were looking for. Loaded double soft corn tacos with great flavor and excellent salsas. After trying their Pastor (heavily seasoned, but needs the spit - no, not that kind of spit) and Carnitas, we have settled on a regular diet of Carne Asada and Pollo Asado. The steak tacos come with whole pinto beans and is a very welcome addition. Their charbroiled chicken is also fantastic. Of course they come street taco style with chopped onions and cilantro. They have 3 salsas, a mild red, a medium tomatillo, and a hot red. The latter can often times be nuclear, but not always. The green and hot red is what we always get. On this front, they do lose the battle with Taco Fiesta, who offered 5 to 7 salsas, and very unique at that. A small gripe.

Super place and glad they are close to...

Been eating at the Rockrimmon location since they opened in (2019?). Was excited when the Voyager location finally arrived, as I live up north now. They keep the inside clean, with custom designed wood tables/booths.

They had a salsa bar with, Avocado, Extra spicy, and “Restaurant style” salsas and maybe a Pico or verde? There was also a tray of sliced carrots and whole jalapeños. Hopefully the bar will return soon!

The extra spicy is my favorite. It appears to be made from Guajillo and Arbol chiles? Has a dark bitter flavor and used to almost have the color and flavor like a red enchilada sauce (though the color has evolved darker over time). It is not for the faint of heart. It’s become sort of a hidden menu item due to the salsa bar hiatus. They will by default give you red and green.

I usually just get a bacon breakfast burrito and a potato egg and cheese burrito for my girlfriend. The carne, carnitas, el pastor, and ground beef are all good.

Slightly pricey portions at $2.50+ a taco. But comparable to any other high quality taco shop and Definitely worth it. I prefer Zapata over Taco Express, because the quality seems much less like fast food. I heard they may roll out a location out east, at Marksheffel and Dublin, in the...

Perhaps the best way to describe this place is “high end street tacos”. And they are awesome!

When we moved to Colorado Springs we hoped we could find anything like the “taco truck” tacos we were used to from the West coast and were so glad when we found Zapata’s.

The simply good chicken and diced onions tacos, the flavorful pork Pastor tacos, beef ... are all great and so are the salsas. The guacamole cream and the (extra) spicy red salsas are favorites but they are all good.

Sometimes we get extra tacos just so we can eat them with the different salsas.

Lastly the bean and cheese burritos are as good as any one I’ve had in Southern California ... fresh tortillas and great beans ... so you can’t go wrong there either.

We lived near the Rockrimmon location and when we moved north we were kinda bummed, so when they opened the Voyager location it just made us so...